Charlesworth may work with the national hockey team

New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) A day after Australian Ric Charlesworth rejected the offer to coach the junior teams, Indian Hockey Federation Tuesday climbed down and is considering to give him a greater role in the training of the national team. Charlesworth appeared satisfied with the outcome of the meeting with Indian Hockey Federation chief K P S Gill.

“We have made some progress on the senior team. We will have further discussion on the subject,” Charlesworth said when asked whether he will have any role to play in the national team.

Besides meeting Charlesworth and Bob Davidson, project manager of ‘Promoting Indian hockey’, IHF officials also had prolonged discussions with national coach Joaquim Carvalho and his two assistant coaches M P Singh and Parmeswaran, former Olympians and some selection committee members as it set out to revive hockey after the debacle in the Olympic qualifiers.

The day-long deliberations in the aftermath of India’s failure to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 80 years seemed to have made some headway with constructive inputs from the participants.

One of the proposals was to use the expertise of Charlesworth in a better way.

“It was proposed that since Ric is here, his experience should be used in a positive manner and he should be made the consultant of the national team,” sources said.

With the intention of moving ahead, a proposal to form a technical committee comprising ex-players, coaches and Charlesworth has also been discussed.

“The committee should monitor the development of Indian hockey and keep tabs on the implementation of project ‘promoting Indian hockey’. The committee should report to the federation from time to time,” the source said.

It was not clear though whether Carvalho would continue in his post after the debacle in Santiago.

After a meeting between the officials of the sports ministry and the Indian Hockey Federation Monday, it was decided to make Charlesworth in charge of the women’s team and junior teams, but the Australian curtly said no to the offer, adding that the world body has sent him here to a play a major role and revive Indian hockey.

Charlesworth expected to be in Chile for the Olympic qualifiers, but the IHF was reluctant to offer him any responsibility saying he was only a consultant.

It was also proposed at the meeting that Indian Hockey Confederation, which is a joint body of the men’s and women’s federations, should have its chairman replaced after every two years as per the rules of the world body.